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Greek vocabulary acquisition using semantic domains

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2003 by Wilson, Mark

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d. The order of the domains and the entries of the domains are arranged from generic to specific,

e. Negative and positive words appear within the same domain due to their close association with semantic features.

David Alan Black suggests that the great advantage to the semantic domains approach is "that it is based upon synchronic (contextual) data, rather than the diachronic (historical) data supplied by most lexicons."31 It is also related to the connotative rather than the denotative meaning of individual words.32 The five principles utilized in the lexicon have been applied to Greek vocabulary acquisition by this author in a recently published work called Mastering New Testament Greek Vocabulary Through Semantic Domains.33 The work uses Louw and Nida's domain classification to teach Greek vocabulary through associative fields.

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2. Vocabulary acquisition and the use of glosses. A primary divergence between the lexicon and Mastering New Testament Greek Vocabulary is that every entry, due to the nature of a vocabulary guide, consists only of what Louw and Nida call glosses (or English references) rather than detailed definitions. Louw and Nida give such detailed definitions along with glosses of all the various meanings of a lexeme within its semantic domain(s). This contrasts with many dictionaries of biblical Greek, such as Barclay Newman's familiar Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, which provide only glosses for the basic meaning of words. Louw and Nida rightly point out that glosses fail to provide the distinctive features of meaning and can at times be misleading. They note several examples where an accurate definition may require a somewhat lengthy description.34

It might be asked, then, how the methodological intent of Louw and Nida's lexicon can be harmonized with Mastering New Testament Greek Vocabulary. Although the latter uses glosses and not detailed definitions, both share a semantic domains approach. Thus certain goals of the lexicon, such as revealing the subtle distinction between words with similar meanings and eliminating the idea that words have one basic meaning, can in part be realized. For example, the words (ProQuest Information and Learning: non-USASCII text omitted.) ("I slaughter, I murder") and (ProQuest Information and Learning: non-USASCII text omitted.) ("I kill") found in Domain 20D can be distinguished in meaning by the use of glosses alone. Yet even Louw and Nida are forced to use glosses: volume 2 of the lexicon provides a Greek-English Index that lists glosses for every entry.

Glosses clearly cannot give nuanced meanings of Greek words as well as detailed definitions, yet their benefits should not be minimized. Glosses are very helpful for beginning and intermediate Greek students because they allow students to acquire a basic but adequate reading knowledge of the Greek text. For students of Greek vocabulary, learning semantically organized glosses rather than detailed definitions circumvents countless hours of study and aids in memorization while expanding vocabulary. Mounce claims, "So many would-be-exegetes lose their ability to use language study because they are not able to work in the language on a continuing basis." He argues that the nonessentials of the Greek language should be reduced in order for the students to easily learn and retain it.35 Mastering New Testament Greek Vocabulary organizes and classifies Greek words into mnemonic groups so that students can interact with the original Greek text in a shorter time.

Greek vocabulary acquisition using semantic domains

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2003 by Wilson, Mark

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